Memoirs and other alternative sources for
Jewish genealogists and students of Jewish history and culture

Monday, January 31, 2011

Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism by Leo Spitzer, 1998

"An evocative, thoughtful, and otherwise impressive combination of memoir, oral history, and reflection on the nature of memory by a child of Viennese Jews who immigrated in 1939 to the exotic, landlocked South American country." from Kirkus Review

Leo Spitzer, a historian, was born in Bolivia in 1939 shortly after his parents escaped from Vienna, Austria. This book is a combination of memoir and history, a fascinating and very informative portrait of a Jewish community that numbered more than 10,000 predominantly German and Austrian refugees right before and during World War II.

Spitzer’s first chapter, called “Desperate Departure,” is a concise, interesting and valuable historical survey of Austria and World War II which provides a rich context for the situation of Austria’s Jewish citizens. He demonstrates how difficult it was to get out: countries had quotas, there was much bureaucratic paperwork, and ports started closing. The author’s family ended up fleeing to Bolivia when his mother’s younger sister’s former boyfriend, who had managed to get to Bolivia, offered to get a visa for her and for her parents if she promised to marry him when she got there. Once she arrived in Bolivia, she applied for visas to bring more family members over.

Living in Bolivia was not easy for the new immigrants. Its population was mostly indigenous Indian. La Paz, the major city, was at an altitude of over 13,000 feet which made many of them sick. At lower altitudes the tropics were not hospitable either, and because getting from one place to another was difficult, smaller towns were isolated from each other. In addition, the Bolivian government was unstable and the refugees encountered some latent anti-Semitism.

But the refugees made a life for themselves there, recreating, as best they could, the European culture they had left behind. For example they opened coffee houses, bakeries, stores selling European style clothes, and held chamber music concerts and evenings of cabaret theater. Spitzer has wonderful memories of going to the Austrian Club with his parents each Sunday where they would socialize with other refugees, all speaking in German, and he would delight in having a “typical” Austrian meal. He also notes that the Austrian/German Jewish community established a community center to minister to their needs as well as a school, Escuela Boliviana-Israelita, where the author was a pupil. Teachers were refugees who taught a largely European-style curriculum.

Spitzer has an informative chapter called “Buena Tierra” the name of a doomed agricultural community that was funded partly by the American Joint Distribution Committee and partly by the mining tycoon and Bolivian resident Moritz (Maurizio) Hochschild. He explains in detail how the plan emerged, what its goals were, and why it failed.

Hotel Bolivia was the name many refugees called their new country. They clung to each other, didn’t really work at assimilating, and once the war was over most left. Some had family who had immigrated elsewhere and they went to join them; others saw better opportunities in countries that did not feel so “foreign.” In 1950 when Spitzer was 10 years old his family left for America where his mother’s sister had already settled. Despite the hard times they’d experienced living in Bolivia, when Spitzer conducted interviews with those who left, he found they all looked back at the years in Bolivia as good years. After all, they had escaped a terrible fate.

This memoir includes photos and reproductions of documents, a Preface and a Postscript by the author, chapter end notes supplying information about sources, a section called "Personal Sources" which is list of all of the people Spitzer interviewed, and an Index.

To read an article about the history of the Jewish refugees in Bolivia, click here.

People
Family on father’s side
Leopold Spitzer – married to Lena
Jeno (Eugene) Spitzer – son of Leopold and Lena; married to Rose
Leo Spitzer – son of Eugene and Rose; married to Marianne (Manon) Hirsch; author
Alexander, Oliver, Gabriel - children of Leo and Marianne
Elly Spitzer Shapiro – daughter of Eugene and Rose
Tony Spitzer – son of Eugene and Rose
Carl – son of Eugene and Rose
Mindy, Erik, Jessica - children of Leo Spitzer's siblings (not clear which child belongs to which parent)

15 comments:

I was a little girl when we were in Oruro, my faher an Economist that run the family mines kept homes in Oruro and La Paz,I only played with family, but this day he came and asked my mother to take me with my nanny to play with a a little girl, she was maybe a year or 2 older, we went, I had never seen tea served in glasses, we have tea time, her name was Celine, we stayed a bit.Never saw them again, I asked my father when I was teen, who they were, he told be they were Jews that had come from a camp after the war, and he wanted to show them they were welcome.Even that I was maybe 3, I never forgot,I wonder what happend to them.The Jews that stayed in Bolivia, are Bolivians to the core.

This is an amazing and little known part of Jewish and Bolivian history. An incredible detail I checked out personally was that Klaus Barbie, who came to Bolivia in 1951,and, as recently revealed, was in the pay of the West German Secret Police,lived in the Jewish refugee community of "Buena Tierra", now known as Charrobamba, near the town of Coroico. Barbie was part of the Merex organization of Nazi officials in Latin America run by Reinhard Gehlen, head of the West German Secret Police. In June 17, 1980 he was part of the "cocaine coup" that took over the gov. of Bolivia.

Anyone who goes to Wikipedia's entry on Klaus Barbie will see much of the above post corroborated. I don't know about his living in the refugee Jewish community. I'm not saying he didn't, but it certainly sounds unbelievably outrageous.

It WAS unbelievably outrageous, but I went there twice to check it out, and found the location of the sawmill that Barbie managed. But remember that by that time nearly all of the Jewish families were gone. Only 9 left at the end of 1944. What was more outrageous was that Barbie was involved in every government of Bolivia from 1964 onward, and he and his friends actually took over the government of Bolivia in 1980. Want details, see the incredible book, The Big White Lie, by Michael Levine. By the way, the last of the original group in Charrobamba, Betty Hamburger, has built a charming tourist attraction at the old community site. There is still much to be seen.

Hi, my name is Marie and I'm writing this for my friend Tina. Tina is looking for information regarding her maternal grandfather Otto Kafka. She only knows very little about him - he apparently came to Bolivia in the thirties from Austria/Hungary/Germany. He married Tina's grandmother who were spanish but born in Bolivia. They had three daughters. As far as she knows - her grandfather died when the daughters were quite small. There were rumors that he already had a family back home! If anyone knows where Tina can find more information we/she would very much appreciate your help.

Hello:I am the wife of Otto's grandson, Eric. I no nothing of another family, but am extremely interested to contact them and would be very pleased to hear from them. Please respond as soon as possible. We do know that he did much business in South America, import/export and steel. Lynev (& Eric) Augustwinipu4 at aol.com

P.S.: I also know that many others in the family would be pleased to be in touch.

Hello:I am the wife of Otto's grandson, Eric. I no nothing of another family, but am extremely interested to contact them and would be very pleased to hear from them. Please respond as soon as possible. We do know that he did much business in South America, import/export and steel. Lynev (& Eric) Augustwinipu4 at aol.com

P.S.: I also know that many others in the family would be pleased to be in touch.

Hello:I am the wife of Otto's grandson, Eric. I no nothing of another family, but am extremely interested to contact them and would be very pleased to hear from them. Please respond as soon as possible. We do know that he did much business in South America, import/export and steel. We also have a painting of Otto from his days in import/export and steel in NY that Tina would like to see.Lynev (& Eric) Augustwinipu4 at aol.com

P.S.: I know that many others in the family would be happy to be learn about Tina's family.

In La Paz when I was growing up my parents would take us to an Austrian Tea Room, there were several germans at one time or another, my father point me one in the group and told he is a nazi, and is sitting with German Jews.Everybody knew who was what, even now.A day after I arrive , everybody knows I am back.

That's terrific. It will get wider circulation. I'm truly amazed at the comments posted about this memoir on this site. It's almost the only book that's generated comments, and certainly more comments than any other.PS I'm going to look at Plunkett Lake Press's list.

My mother's name is Henny Elba Goldstain-Golberg . She came to Bolivia during the Holucost . Married Raul Pinto . She had two children. She left them with this man in other words run away becouse he abused her. I was told by a family whom they new her( Arturo Buchman).Aparently she did suffer during the persecution of JEws .I'm 63 years old looking for her. If you could help me wich way to go and find her.

"[W]hen I was much younger . . . even then I would wonder what kind of present you could possibly have without knowing the stories of your past." Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

Welcome

My name is Toby Anne Bird and I've been interested in memoirs for many years. I teach courses on autobiographical writing in New York, and I'm an amateur genealogist. I've created this blog to call attention to the many compelling memoirs about Jewish people, their communities, their history and their culture.

Genealogy and history are more than facts and figures. Memoirs help bring those facts and figures to life because they are eye-witness accounts that immerse their readers in lives lived. These primary sources help you understand life on the ground, so to speak - a time period, a geographical location, and/or a particular set of circumstances.

The memoirs that I post on this blog are ones I've read and recommend. Each post consists of a short review of the contents and is followed by lists of family names and geographical locations of interest to those involved in Jewish genealogy. I will occasionally also be posting documentaries and fiction that can enrich a genealogical or historical perspective.

I hope that lots of you out in cyberspace will find this blog useful. I expect in the beginning to post three times a week - on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, one memoir per post. I welcome your feedback, suggestions, and questions. This blog went live on 3/1/2010.

Toby Anne Bird, Ph.DYou can leave comments on the blog or e-mail me at toby.bird@ncc.edu.

4/12/2010: I now have posted reviews on 30 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays instead of three times a week.

7/19/10: I now have now posted reviews of more than 50 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews once a week on Mondays.

9/5/11: I now have posted reviews of more than 100 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews twice a month on the first and third Mondays.

5/31/14: I now have posted reviews of more than 170 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews once a month on the first Monday.

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Blog Table of Contents: Alphabetical List of Reviews Posted

Abramovich and Zilberg, Smuggled in Potato Sacks: Fifty stories of the Hidden Children of the Kaunas Ghetto

Aciman, Out of Egypt

Adorjan, An Exclusive Love

Alban, Anya's War

Antin, The Promised Land: The Autobiography of a Russian Immigrant

Appelfeld, My Life

Apple, I Love Gootie: My Grandmother's Story

Apple, Roomates: My Grandfather's Story

Auster, Invention of Solitude

Bauer (director), The Ritchie Boys (documentary film)

Beer's The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

Behar, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba

Bendavid-Val, The Heavens Are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod

Benjamin, Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Familly, The Story of a Nation

Berg, Diary of Mary Berg: Growing up in the Warsaw ghetto

Berger, Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust

Bernstein H., The Dream

Bernstein H., The Invisible Wall

Bernstein, B. Family Matters: Sam, Jennie and the kids

Bernstein, S., The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival

Berr, The Journal of Helene Berr

Bitton-Jackson, I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing up in the Holocaust

Bloom, Out of a Doll's House

Brenner, The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt

Brittain and Spotton (writer/director) Memorandum (documentary film)

Buergenthal, A Lucky Child: A memoir of surviving Auschwitz as a young boy

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Potentially Useful Books that are more Histories, than Memoirs - not reviewed.

Eliach, There Once Was a World: A 900-year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok, 1998. A National Book Award Finalist that recreates and documents the author's hometown shtetl in Lithuania that is the basis for the permanent exhibit called the "Tower of Life" at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Evans, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, 1973. A classic study of its subject, only intermittently autobiographical. The author grew up in Durham, North Carolina.

Margoshes, A World Apart: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century Galicia, published in Yiddish in 1936; published in English in 2008. A very useful book written in a lively manner about life in Galicia which includes discussions of the Hassidic dynasties and other rabbinic authorities and their rivalries, the world of work beyond the realm of the synagogue, and the day to day life of the author's family.

Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelbaum, 1958. A day by day documenting of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto and what Ringelblum, a social historian and archivist of the ghetto, heard about the war outside the ghetto.